Calamities of Nature: Unified Gravity Force Theory
For the rest of the time, they also have their own web site (invariably with a nightmarish layout) and like to post to science forums.
Who Knew? Thermodynamics is Witchcraft
Legend has it that if you say “Bloody Boltzmann” into a mirror thirteen times, Bloody Boltzmann will appear in your vacuum system.
A Spoonful of Silicon Helps the Medicine Roll Off
This superhydrophobic coating is truly stunning
NeverWet is a patent-pending silicon-based covering that deflects nearly all liquids and heavy oils by creating a very high contact angle upon application. The angle is much higher than traditional substrates, such as car wax (90 degrees), Teflon (95 degrees), or Rain-X (110 degrees). Liquid literally glides off NeverWet’s 160 degree to 175 degree angle in a way that almost seems like computer animation
I Hate You, Neil Tyson!
Neil deGras(Se) Tyson and The Inconvenient Truth
I like the image of Neil deGrasse Tyson popping up in unexpected places to inject some science into a conversation, and the suggested reaction (or phobia) is not entirely without precedent.
The Return of Amateur Science
How crowdsourcing is changing science
[A] few months ago, the papyrologists tried something bold. They put up a website, called Ancient Lives, with a game that allowed members of the public to help transcribe the ancient Greek at home by identifying images from the papyrus. Help began pouring in. In the short time the site has been running, people have contributed 4 million transcriptions. They have helped identify Thucydides, Aristophanes, Plutarch’s “On the Cleverness of Animals,” and more.
Ancient Lives is part of a new approach to the conduct of modern scholarship, called crowd science or citizen science. The idea is to unlock thorny research projects by tapping the time and enthusiasm of the general public. In just the last few years, crowd science projects have generated notable contributions to fields as disparate as ecology, AIDS research, and astronomy. The approach has already accelerated research in a handful of specialized fields. And it may also accomplish something else: breaking down some of the old divisions between the highly educated mandarins of the academy and the curious amateurs out in the world.
Science was done by interested amateurs in the past, and in some fields that has continually been the case. I think this is a combination of a change and a return.
That's a Long Way for a Jaw to Drop
JAW DROPPING Space Station time lapse!
Click the HD and watch in full-screen.
I'd Buy That for a Dollar
There’s a DIY explanation at Cute video of kids DIYing their own penny battery, where I saw the video, but I found a higher-resolution copy, along with some other DIY battery projects, in this pdf
Those Cherries are not for Picking
Exposing a Climate Science Fraud
I’m shocked —shocked! — to find that someone is playing fast and loose with global warming analysis to support their position. Some aspects of this is the statistical significance game George Will played some time ago by looking at short sets of noisy data, only this time it’s a scientist — someone who should know better.
Elemonylemonylemon
Today is 11/11/11, which is what I like to call line-segment day (or possibly numeral integrity day*) but which is also Veteran’s day in the US (it can be two things!). Here’s a page displaying time from the USNO master clock in the various US/North American timezones; it’s in YY/MM/DD format (though you can’t determine that today) and also has the master clock UTC output so you can observe the further alignments of 11:11:11, in case that’s your bag, baby.
*no crooked numbers
Deep into Stalker Territory
Social networks exist to sell you crap. The icky feeling you get when your friend starts to talk to you about Amway, or when you spot someone passing out business cards at a birthday party, is the entire driving force behind a site like Facebook.
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We have a name for the kind of person who collects a detailed, permanent dossier on everyone they interact with, with the intent of using it to manipulate others for personal advantage – we call that person a sociopath. And both Google and Facebook have gone deep into stalker territory with their attempts to track our every action. Even if you have faith in their good intentions, you feel misgivings about stepping into the elaborate shrine they’ve built to document your entire online life.